Sonar Tips – Salmon

It is prime salmon time in many ports right now. If you’ve been to any of the places further north it isn’t going to be hard to spot them on sonar. However in many of the southern ports where big numbers haven’t shown up yet it can be trickier.

Once they show up they’ll often push the other fish out of the deep water they frequent. There is a big difference between your sonar showing “fish” (usually sheep, cats, walleye) and salmon. The fish are often spaced out and up in the water column. Marks won’t be as clearly defined as a big salmon hook.

When searching for salmon it is best to find pods of them. Look for grouped up fish that are near the bottom. These marks will be well defined and large, once you get the hang of spotting them there is no mistaking it. You can also judge how quickly they are swimming by how long the mark appears. The more “hook” like the mark is, the faster it is going by you.

I also like to run multiple sonar beams on my Humminbirds when jigging. One “wide beam” (83khz) and one “narrow beam” (200 khz). Some units go by wide and some units go by khz but that should help you figure it out. A wide beam will help me to find my spoon and also show me more fish. It also alerts you faster to if some are coming through. A narrow beam will be clearer and more defined and both are represented well in the samples below.

One other tip is that if you are going to use DI make sure you switch to 455khz and MEGA imaging frequencies don’t really show fish as well.